I’m learning more and more about the tribes that I belong to everyday. Most of the tribes I belong to I didn’t even realize I was a member of until I started reading Seth Godin’s blog on a regular basis. His insights into marketing are simply profound. Literally. A lot of concepts he touches on are simple on the surface but often overlooked and underused by most people who have a product or service they desire to share with the world. Check out his blog and catch the ideavirus then share it with your tribe.
Not long ago I read about a new social network start-up that will be to its users what FACEBOOK was intended to be before it outgrew its original model. They want to build a social site truly dedicated to college students who can build stronger communities who can benefit from being able to connect on and offline. It will be invite only for actual students at a particular university. So there will be limited but possibly more meaningful relationships developing during a student’s college career.
Do you remember which clubs you were a member of while you were in college? Well each club, fraternity, intramural sports or whatever will be able to create their own invite only communities. So depending on how many activities you are involved in at your college may be the number of communities you are a part of. Some may actually overlap one another which can only make the experience that much more fulfilling.
This is obviously not ground breaking stuff but sounds like a good approach to lining yourself up with like minded individuals who you actually get to interact with in real life as opposed to not being able grab lunch with 70 percent of your Myspace or Facebook communities. You can make the connection more personal. This is already being done through some ning communities. It kind of introduces another element to a social network if you have the possibility of interacting with the members of your tribe face to face. Accountability.
This raises the bar in terms of what you actually bring to the table. It plants the thought in your head of contributing to your community. So what about you and your tribe(s)? How many tribes do you belong to? Do you know the goals of your tribe? Are you one of its leaders? Are you a tribe member looking for a leader? Are you an active member? How do you know? Is it time for you to start a new tribe? Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us
We are experiencing so many changes in the world around us and its obvious that the so-called leaders aren’t quite sure what to do during this time of uncertainty. Technology is exploding at a rate faster than our ability to fully realize the usefulness of these advancements before we move on to the next breakthrough. We have to be able to filter out all the noise around us to determine what’s really relevant to us and our future. Collectively & Individually.
During a time like this when our economic infrastructure is under constant threat of a complete meltdown then we must strengthen our connections within our communities. We may have to adopt a bartering system (P2P) of exchange in which case we have to know what and how the members of our tribes contribute to our communities and vice versa.
Well I have a challenge for you. Identify five communities or tribes that you belong to and describe what value or benefit you add to it. What are you bringing to the table? Feel free to leave your list in the comments section.
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